Auckland builder turned YouTube sensation

In January 2018, Scotland-born New Zealand Certified Builders (NZCB) member and Auckland builder, Scott Brown, decided to combine his two passions; carpentry work and making videos. Five days a week Scott takes his camera to work and films himself building, then edits each day’s footage and turns it into a video for his YouTube channel Scott Brown Carpentry.

Scott started in 2018 and after six months of making videos, he had 500 subscribers. Now he has more than 270k subscribers and 300 videos. I caught up with him to find out what drives him.

Which one event inspired you to start making videos? There wasn’t one event, I had been watching other YouTubers for a while and decided to make my own building videos. I first started filming in Scotland with just a GoPro and went from there. When you first started out, were you embarrassed to tell people what you did? No, not embarrassed. But it was sometimes difficult to explain to family and friends what exactly I was doing! Fortunately, all my clients were understanding of my filming and actually pretty enthusiastic about it! What made you choose to go into online videos with so many people already doing it? I wanted to make the sort of videos that I would want to watch. I never considered how many people were already doing it. There is a hunger for new content and so much potential in this area. YouTube has been around since 2005, but I believe in many ways, it is just getting started. What is the best comment you’ve ever received? I hear from a lot of apprentices and home DIY-ers that my videos ‘’got them into building’’. I didn’t expect that! I really like my job, so it is cool that I could be encouraging others into building too. What is the best piece of advice you could give an apprentice builder? Learn from as many builders as possible. When I first started, I had 30 other builders on-site to learn from. Also, don’t be afraid to ask questions. When did you first realise you were famous? Haha! I don’t know about ‘famous’ but the first time I was recognised was about a year after I started the channel. I was driving down the road and someone yelled out “Scott Brown! Love your videos!”. What is one frustrating thing about making videos? Filming all day and not realising that I’ve made a mistake until I start editing the video. Who is your favourite YouTuber and why? Casey Neistat. He changed the YouTube vlogging format by making videos that were closer to films or TV. If you had the chance, what would you do differently? If I could do anything differently, I would have started sooner. I’ve been building for 17 years but only filming it for three. What is your favourite thing about doing this? I enjoy the diversity of both building and film editing. There is a lot of variety in my day! What is your least favourite thing about doing this? Sometimes it is like running two companies at the same time. I love what I do, but it is a lot of work. What would you do if you weren’t making YouTube videos? I would most likely grow the building business, taking on more projects, and more builders. But the YouTube channel allows me to make money and still be on the tools – which I really enjoy. Have you ever had any setbacks and if so, what were they? Just after finishing my apprenticeship, I broke my hip, which meant I couldn’t work for eight months. What kind of equipment would you recommend for someone starting a YouTube channel? Start recording with your phone and upgrade to a camera and more equipment when you can. I use a Canon camera and I edit with Final Cut Pro. I learned how to edit from watching YouTube videos and from practice. On average, how long does it take for you to produce a video? To whittle down two hours of footage into a 12-minute video takes about five hours of editing. What do you do about nasty or negative commenters? Laugh and take it as a sign more people are watching my videos!